Living Broken Dreams
by NDV
Summary: CJ/Kate - Chicago Hope Crossover, written with Cappuccino Girl... "She had become claustrophobic in her own skin..."


Living Broken Dreams  
  
Authors: NDV & Cappuccino Girl  
  
(West Wing/Chicago Hope cross-over)  
  
Rating: PG-13, sort of slash-ish.  
  
Disclaimer: The West Wing is the property of Aaron Sorkin, John Wells   
Productions and Warner Bros. Chicago Hope is the property of David E Kelley, David E Kelley Productions and Fox.  
  
Notes: We're working under the assumption that Kate took the job she once wanted, a lecturing position at a university, after she left Chicago Hope.  
  
Summary: She had become claustrophobic in her own skin.  
  
  
  
  
It wasn't the first time she had come here, and it wouldn't be the last. It was when she was tired, angry, lonely, confused, desperate, or pained, that she came, that she tore away from her office like the theoretical bat out of hell, squealed tires as she hurried from the parking lot. She went to a bar on the outskirts of DC, to put as much distance as possible between those friends who cared too much, away from the glare of the press. She felt smothered by herself, her work, her friends, so she fled to an overpriced bar where no one knew her and no one cared for her, and she didn't order Grasshoppers, but straight up vodka.  
  
As she sat at the polished granite counter sipping her drink, she willed the world to turn fuzzy and warm, but all she felt was cold and alone, alcohol burning her throat. She longed for the life she's sure she once had without realizing it, tidy and warm and understood, where she feared nothing but the inevitable end. Yet she moved across the country, took the job she had only dreamt of. And somewhere in between briefing the press, and spinning a story, shots were fired and blood was spilled, and words were spoken and actions were taken and disregarded, until she had become claustrophobic in her own skin.  
  
They loved her, Sam and Josh and Toby and Leo and Jed, but they loved her as the little girl of the bullpen, the friend and the confidante, the daughter and the sister. The girl that could never be lover. They were all a little in love with her but she had fallen too far to ever love them in return. It was in those precious moments when they looked at her with either disappointment or confused acceptance that she felt less than herself, less than the woman she had been. She wasn't sure if she'd ever be her again.  
  
She barely looked up when a woman sat beside her, barely held in her   
emotions as her mind drifted backward to hours before when she'd stormed away after being denied information once more, the extra player on the soccer team, the person that was not wanted again. It was in moments such as those that she felt like she was falling, and her throat closed upon itself as agoraphobia sat in, and as she stared off into the distance she was brought back to herself by a hand on her shoulder.  
  
It was when the hand moved that she turned to the figure beside her, hair a shade similar to her own, cautious expression on her face, bourbon in her hand. "Are you all right? If you're feeling ill... I'm a doctor, or I was."   
  
The words were fractured, the statement disjointed, and CJ resolutely   
dropped her eyes to her glass, realizing then that her own glass was empty once more and that the doctor across from her wasn't far behind.  
  
She waved off the woman's worry with a flick of her hand, and she chuckled as the bartender looked warily between them before accepting CJ's demand for another drink, and a refill for the friend beside her whose name she did not know.  
  
As they waited, she observed the other woman's hands, beautiful fingers, trembling slightly, and she began to question why the doctor would ask for help, when it seemed as though she was in similar pain. She was a beautiful figure, swirling the deep liquid around in its glass, the ice clinking gently when it touched the sides. With each sip the woman took, she shuddered, and with each shudder, CJ yearned to know why. What brought two women with so much education to this place where they couldn't solve the most simplistic problem? So rather than ask for an explanation, she put her hand on the doctor's thigh, watching worn eyes regain a hint of the sparkle they once must have had.  
  
The woman smiled and leaned forward. "I'm Kate," she whispered into   
Claudia's hair, and the strands billowed away from her ear with the force of her breath. Kate was a doctor and Kate was beautiful and smart, and she could see the sarcasm in her eyes that just barely covered the pain, and she knew then, that Kate too had left something behind, something precious and irreplaceable. She'd probably always deserved better than what she received, and it once again was not all it was made out to be, so she had been forced to pretend that she was living the perfect life. Two figures at a bar, nomads in search   
of that which will never exist, living broken dreams.  
  
So, CJ did the only thing she knew to mend the cracks, lips softly on Kate's cheek, eyes regaining their life as they touched, mouth and unfamiliar skin.   
  
"Come home," she whispered, although she didn't know why. Maybe it was the smell of the doctor's perfume, her perfect hands, the way a delicate silver necklace rested on her sharp collarbone, or maybe it was because two lost lives might find their way back to the path which they had left behind.  
  
Her apartment wasn't far, and they hardly spoke in the cab for alcohol had numbed their senses to all but touch and visual beauty, and once they walked through the door, the doctor's hands mapped out CJ's body, in search of that which was hurting, which she could heal. Their lips sealed cracks, even if it was only a temporary fixture, and when CJ's hands had coaxed Kate to climax, they laid close together, two worn bodies cushioned by soft sheets. 


End file.
